STORM: The Black Sphere

Will gave a teenaged salesclerk two hundred Swiss francs. In return, they got a six-hour hire of three hydrospeed floats plus extra-thick wet suits, flippers, and crash helmets fitted with flashlights. When the clerk had finished piling up their equipment, he dug a brochure out of a drawer and gave it to Will and Gaia. “This guide you have hired, he is very experienced? He is licensed?”

“Yeah,” Will said. He grabbed his bright red float and glanced back toward the parking lot, where Elke was waiting.

“Now,” the teenager said, “remember: Read the brochure thoroughly. Your guide will explain everything, but you can read this on the way. Hydrospeeding is the most exciting thing you can do. Like white-water rafting. But you’re on your own and you’re right down there, on the water. Exhilaration like you would not believe. Have fun—and stay safe.”

Gaia picked up her float. It was about three feet long and a foot and a half wide, made from polyethylene, and filled with polyurethane for extra buoyancy. There were hollows for your elbows, and two handles to hold on to at the front. The idea was to go down white water headfirst, with your chest resting on the board. “Have you ever done anything like this before?” she asked.

Will shook his head. Gaia glanced at Andrew, who was scanning the list of sports on the blackboard outside the kiosk, hands on his hips. He looked awed. Clearly the inhaler drugs hadn’t worn off yet.

“Hey.” Andrew waved to them. “Zorbing! I’d like to try it. Imagine: rolling across the land. It’d be like flying, but . . . on land.” He grinned. In other circumstances, it might have been amusing, Will thought. But not now. Well, maybe only slightly.

“Next time,” Will said. “Right now we have to do something that’s like flying but . . . through water.”

Good question, he thought. “In theory, about fifteen minutes. But I don’t know if the formula was actually finished. I got it from the development lab. And they were perfecting it for a man weighing two hundred twenty pounds.”

“What’s that? Like twice Andrew’s weight?” Shaking her head, she called out to Andrew: “Come and get your stuff. And try to look normal. Please.”

In the back, Andrew, Will, and Gaia were squashed together. Andrew looked almost smothered by the flabby neoprene wet suits and the other gear, but he didn’t seem to mind. He hummed along to the radio, which was blaring a German pop song.

Will’s brain tuned out. He was thinking about their plan. If they did get caught at the Sphere, they could always play the kid card. Suspicious security officers would usually try to grab kids, not shoot them. At least, that’s what Will had told Elke. And if they did get into serious trouble, Barrington would help them. Will was sure of it. MI6 would somehow get them back to Britain.

Barrington might refuse ever to deal with STORM again, but at least they’d be alive. And at least they’d have tried to find out exactly what was going on. If InVesta wanted to get its hands on cold fusion, STORM had to stop them. No single company could be allowed to own a technology that in theory could be used to hold nations to ransom.

Dirk’s map was clear enough. Almost the entire route would be white water. They’d have to negotiate some nasty bends. A few of the drops were near-vertical. If they strayed from the route into other channels, they could easily get lost. Deep underground.

Then, if they actually made it out of the mountain, they’d have to tumble down the waterfall into InVesta’s dam both intact and unnoticed. Apprehension made Will’s pulse race.

But the self-hardening body armor would come in very useful, he thought. The roaches should, if well wrapped, survive the journey. He couldn’t risk Eye Spy, though. They’d also have to communicate with Elke somehow, but how could they protect their phones?

“It’s so beautiful,” Andrew murmured next to him. He was pointing across the valley below. Pale grass was sprinkled with candy-colored wildflowers. Picture-book houses nestled against the slopes.

In some ways, Will thought, STORM could be about to embark on their toughest challenge yet. He needed Andrew’s full mental concentration. Which he did not have.

“And you still haven’t told me,” Elke said as she swerved the Maserati around yet another steep bend. “What exactly was in that inhaler?”

“I see. A secret formula. Alles klaar! You know, I do have some items of my own. You spill your little beans, maybe I will spill some of my own.”

“Now you are interested! Give and take—that is the rule of any relationship, remember. Although, it is true, I prefer to take than give.” She chuckled dryly. “In my experience, it is safer.”

“In your experience as a mercenary?” Will asked, remembering what Dirk had said back at the bar.

“Not that! No, believe me, not that. Dirk is many things, but when it comes to business, he plays fair. So, the formula?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Will said. “But it makes people trusting. At least, that’s what it was designed for.”

“So do you.” Will glanced out the window. They were climbing fast on a road cut into gray rock. He could hear rivers, but he couldn’t see them. They passed through a series of tunnels. When they came out, Will saw streams rushing, and a waterfall cascading behind a small shop.

They seemed to be above the tree line now. The only green was from shrubs and grass and pale lichen spreading over bare rock. Will saw an altitude marker: 5,700 feet. He blinked at the sunlight reflecting off the runnels of ice above them. The stripes looked like rays. They were blinding white.

Elke rolled the steering wheel to the right and pushed a black flip-flop on the brake. She cut the engine. The silence was sudden. Andrew’s eyes were closed now, Will noticed. He might actually be asleep.

Will got out of the car. At this altitude, it was cold. He shivered. For a few moments, he surveyed their surroundings. They were high, and the view was impressive. Will could see right down a long valley to the lake at the bottom. Something seemed to be rolling across the water. A Zorb ball, he guessed. From here, there was no sign of any buildings.

Elke and Gaia stood close by. Andrew had gotten out. He was crouching, shielding his eyes against the sun, gazing at the lake.

Elke peered across the valley, squinting. “You can’t see it from here. It’s down, round that slope—over there. It’s built on a ledge. An aerie.”

An aerie. An eagle’s nest. Will glanced up. He couldn’t help hoping that perhaps Barrington’s robot was up there somewhere, keeping an eye on them.

Elke cracked her knuckles loudly. “So, you are sure you want to do this?” she said to Will.

“Yeah.” He glanced at Gaia, who nodded. And a thought that had struck him after Venice resurfaced. In St. Petersburg, they had risked their lives. They’d felt they had no choice. And it hadn’t been easy. Every single second of their fear had cut right to the bone. Then in Venice, situations that should have made him afraid, if not terrified, had barely registered. They’d gotten away with so much. They’d taken risks, and those risks had paid off. Every time.

What if they were getting overconfident? What if they’d had a run of good luck? Play dangerous odds, and in the end they catch up with you. His father had known that.

But they were here. In Switzerland. They’d come so far already. And Will knew why they were about to try to break into the Sphere. It wasn’t for the thrill. Or, it wasn’t only for the thrill. “I need to take another look at the map,” he said.

“I could lead the way,” Gaia said. “My memory is better than yours, for something like this. I could easily memorize the map.”

Will hesitated. But she was right. “I’ll get it.” He turned back to the car and was struck again by the problem of how they’d take their phones down with them. “Do you have anything hard and watertight?” he asked Elke. “We have to take a phone with us.”

“I have some boxes,” Elke said. “They are plastic, with loops. Perhaps you can attach them to belts? But they are not watertight. You will be underwater sometimes, you know. The journey will not be smooth. I don’t think a phone will make it.”

“But we need to stay in contact with you,” Will said. “If there are problems, we’ll need to ask you for help.”

“What about the bugs?” Gaia asked. “If the roaches get a bit wet, they’ll be all right, won’t they?”

Will wasn’t listening. He’d just followed Gaia’s thought process. Leave Elke with the earphone, and talk to her via the mike in a roach. It was a good idea—except for one thing. “I’ll need the earphone in there,” he said to Gaia. “I’ll be using the roaches for audio.”

Gaia glanced back at the Maserati. “Elke, you said you had kit. Do you have a laptop in that trunk?”

“I have a fully functioning mobile surveillance unit in that trunk.” Elke clamped her hands onto her hips. “At our annual meeting last year, Vanya mentioned a project he wanted to pursue—implants in the exoskeletons of cockroaches. I thought he was drunk.”

Gaia wanted to ask about the annual meeting. Later, she told herself. “So, Elke, you have Internet access?”

“So we need to divert a signal from one of those roaches to a website, or somehow directly to Elke’s laptop,” Gaia said. She looked down at Andrew. His eyes were closed, his face tilted to the sun. Gaia sighed and crouched beside him. “Andrew, there’s something I need to ask you. Can you concentrate—”

Alpine Adventures, 6:30 P.M.